Wednesday, May 16, 2007

A picture of the three gents, courtesy of Tim. How he got Tom Jones (centre), Dick Whittington (left) and Harry Enfield (right) in the same room, I haven't a clue...

So, Dear Friends, you see, it's true: Contrast Podcast is the voice of the common person. For this week it was turned over, thanks to Dearest Nats, to Every Tom, Dick, or Harry. Each of these fine gentlefolk is well represented in the mix of contributions, and it seems there is also a smattering of smutty double entendres concerning Richard - ooer, missus!! So, as ever, I counsel you to download the podcast directly here, or via this RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ContrastPodcast

So, I bet some of you are wondering where the phrase "Every Tom, Dick, or Harry" comes from. Apparently pairs of common male names were frequently used in Elizabethan times to refer to the great unwashed. The first recorded instance of this practice dates to 1555 and Sir David Lindesay's Ane Dialog betwix Experience and ane Courteour. Indeed, at the end of the 16th century even Willy Shakespeare had jumped onto ye olde bandwaggone, referring in HenryIV, Part 2 to "Tom, Dicke, and Francis." The famous triumvirate was most likely first brought together in The Farmer's Almanac of 1815, which tells us 'So he hired Tom, Dick and Harry, and at it they went.' Ooer missus, yet again.

I had a bit of a tough time choosing a song this week, but in the end elected to stay away from Dick, as most of the choonz bearing his name were rude and I've not yet recovered from CP's X-Rated episode. So here's what you might have had: